Former Tshwane ANC chair Kgosi Maepa looks set to take over the post of mayor after DA candidate Cilliers Brink was voted out in a motion of no confidence this week.
Business Day understands that a decision will be made next week by the ANC’s top leaders on whether to confirm Maepa as its mayoral candidate for Tshwane. With just two years until the next local government election, the ANC will have to carefully select a candidate capable of turning around the troubled metro, which has been plagued by financial and service delivery problems for nearly a decade.
Maepa was an adviser to two former ANC mayors in Tshwane: Gwen Ramokgopa and Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. He is currently an adviser in the office of Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi.
Contacted for comment on Thursday, Maepa said the decision on who would take up the mayoral seat would be made by the ANC’s top seven leadership. While Maepa is understood to be the front-runner for the post, there is push-back from the party’s regional leaders. The party’s provincial executive committee is also said to be divided on the issue.
Sources in the provincial executive committee (PEC) argue that Maepa is not even a councillor in the city; however, his allies say he was first on the ANC’s list of candidates before the 2021 local government election and would therefore be able to stand for the post.
The selection of Maepa is likely to disappoint ActionSA, which had lobbied the ANC to appoint its candidate, Nasipa Moya, as the next mayor.
In a statement on Friday, the DA’s Gauteng leader, Solly Msimanga, said Brink would be fielded as a candidate during the mayoral election next week.
The party said it would accept sitting in the opposition benches in the likely event that Brink will not be elected mayor.
“It is clear that the anti-GNU (government of national unity) faction of the ANC is gaining the upper hand in the party and to the extent that there is a pro-GNU faction, they simply do not have the will and the wherewithal to stand up to those hollowing out the party from within. Whatever the ANC’s interval arrangement, it will be judged by its behaviour,” Msimanga said.
Msimanga attributed the financial distress in the city to the Gauteng provincial government, led by the ANC, which unlawfully placed Tshwane under administration in 2020.
“It is the ANC, with the help of ActionSA, who chose chaos instead of co-operation with the DA at a time when Tshwane’s financial recovery is still at a fragile point,” Msimanga said.
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